Between CNIL rulings, the limits of third-party cookies and GA4's attribution quirks (the famous “Unassigned” traffic), steering a marketing strategy without reliable data has become an obstacle course.
C’est là que Piano Analytics — the direct heir to France's AT Internet — comes in. As a Piano Analytics agency, at Smart Bees we see the tool not as a mere alternative but as a genuine competitor to GA4 for first-party data that the French regulator has approved.
Contents:
- Piano Analytics: far more than a “French GA4”
- The game changer: hybrid measurement
- Why choose Smart Bees as your Piano Analytics agency?
1. Piano Analytics: far more than a “French GA4”
Many will remember Xiti or AT Internet; Piano Analytics is a fully modernized platform, built for the privacy era.
- Event-based model: like GA4, Piano is built on events and properties, giving full flexibility to track complex user journeys across web, mobile and apps.
- Sovereignty and compliance: although now owned by a US company, the solution is still developed in France, in Mérignac. That carries weight with your legal team: the data is processed in Europe.
- Exploration power: Avec l'outil Data Query, you can dig into your data with surgical granularity and query the API easily to feed your data warehouse or your BI tools.
2. The game changer: hybrid measurement
This is where Piano Analytics pulls ahead of GA4. Hybrid measurement is the right trade-off between respecting privacy and needing performance data.
Le constat est simple : under GDPR, a brand can lose 40% — sometimes 80% — of its traffic data when users decline cookies.
Do read our article on Piano Analytics.
How does it work?
- Consent exemption: Piano Analytics is one of the few solutions that can be configured to qualify for exemption from consent collection. You capture 100% of the “strictly necessary” data — sessions, transactions, sources — from the very first page.
- Opt-in consent: if the user accepts cookies, Piano automatically unlocks finer, more precise behavioral data for deeper analysis.
3. Why choose Smart Bees as your Piano Analytics agency?
Installing a tag is one thing. Building a marketing and analytics stack that matches your data maturity is another. Our expertise goes beyond a standard implementation.
🛠️ Tailored implementation & debugging
We don't just drop in a script. We make your dataLayer reliable, configure your tags through GTM (Web & Server-Side) and use tools such as Stream Inspector (Piano Analytics), the browser console to debug your environments — particularly on mobile apps, where tracking is usually harder.
When a Piano Analytics project kicks off, our teams:
- Revisit the reasons for switching from your existing tool (GA4, Matomo and so on) to Piano Analytics. We can start with a dual setup if that's safer.
- Confirm the implementation stages for Piano Analytics and who is responsible for what.
- Agree a project back-plan and the upcoming milestones, so your teams have visibility.
🎓 Training & support
A tool only has value if it gets used. We run workshops with your teams to:
- Master the Audience interface and the standard reports — the goal being self-sufficiency in Piano's web analytics interface.
- Build custom, intuitive dashboards for your strategic KPIs. We work through hands-on exercises so your teams can configure data and reports to enrich their own analysis.
- Use Axon, Piano's AI, which automatically flags anomalies in your data so you can act early.
- Understand the differences between Piano Analytics and your existing analytics tool.
We teach as we go, so your teams can use the tool day to day. Changing analytics tool is no small project. Our job is to guide you through the migration to Piano Analytics and adapt everything downstream that depends on your current tool's data. We make the transition calm, and we bring the teams up to speed on this new, compliant analytics platform.
🔄 Orchestration & CDP
Piano Analytics ne doit pas vivre en silo. En tant qu'experts Segment (CDP) specialists, we integrate Piano into your wider stack. We unify your browsing data with your CRM data — through identifiers such as user_id — to get a 360° customer view without depending on email alone.
In closing
Migrating to Piano Analytics means choosing legal peace of mind and a complete analytics tool. Whether you're an e-commerce business sharpening its attribution or a media group trying to understand its audiences, Piano Analytics may well be the analytics tool you need.
Planning a migration, or need your current tracking audited?
At Smart Bees, that's our daily work. Get in touch and let's talk.
Do read our articles on les MMPs 👈
